"I used to sit here like this." She bent forward and rested her head on his knee. She had a way of putting her two hands together as a child is taught to hold them in prayer and placing them beneath her cheek; and so she waited while David paused, his hand on her hair, and his eyes fixed on the sea of hilltops where they melted into the sky,—a mysterious, undulating line of the faintest blue, seen through the arching branches above, and the swaying hemlocks on either side, and over the tops of a hundred varieties of pines and deciduous trees beneath them, all down the long slope up which they had climbed.
Thus they waited, until she lifted her head and looked into his eyes questioningly. He bent forward and kissed her lips and then lifted the flute to his own—but again paused.
"What are you thinking now, David?" she asked.
"So you really thought it was the 'Voices'? What was their message, Cassandra?"
"I couldn't make it out then, but I thought of this place and of father, and it was all at once like as if he wouldmake me know something, and I prayed God would he lead me to understand was it a message or not. So that was the way I kept on following—until I—"
"You came to me, dear?"
"Yes."
"And what did you think the interpretation was then?"
"Yes, it was you—you, David. It was love—and hope—and gladness—everything, everything—"
"Go on."
"Everything good and beautiful—but—sometimes it comes again—"
"What comes?"
"Play, David, play. I'll tell you another time in another place, not here. No, no."
So he played for her until the dusk deepened around and below them, and they had to make their way back stumblingly. When they came to the wild, untrodden bank of the little river, David resigned the choosing of their path entirely to her and followed close, holding her hand where she led. When at last they reached their cabin, they did not light candles, but sat long in the doorway conversing on the deep things of their souls.
It still seemed to David as if she held something back from him, and now he begged her for a more perfect self-revealing.
"It is no longer as if we were separate, dearest; can't you remember and feel that we are one?"
"In a way I do. It is very sweet."
"You say in a way. In what way?"
"Why, David?"
"I want your point of view."
"I see. We're not really one until we see from each other's hilltop, are we?"
"No, and you never take me into the secret places of your heart and let me look off from your own hilltop."
"Didn't I this very evening, David?"
"We stood on the same spot of earth and looked off on the same distance, yet in my soul I know I did not see what you saw."
"Pictures come to me very suddenly and just float by, hardly understood by myself. I didn't want you to see all I saw, David. I don't know how comes it, but all thetime, even in the midst of our great gladness—right when it is most beautiful—far before me, right across our way, is a place that is dim. It seems 'most like the shadows that fall on the hills when those great piles of clouds pass through the sky, when it is deep blue all around them and the sun shines everywhere else."
"Your soul is still an undiscovered country to me, Cassandra."
"I should think you'd like that. Don't men love to go discovering? And if you could get into the secret chambers, as you call them, you wouldn't find much. Then you'd be sorry."
"Cassandra, what are you covering and holding back?"
"I don't know, David. It's like it was when I couldn't understand the message of the 'Voices'! When it comes clear and strong, I'll tell you."
"Then there is something?"
"Yes."
With a little sigh, she rose and entered the cabin. He sat in silence as she had left him, but soon she returned. Standing behind him in the darkness, she put her interlaced fingers under his chin and drew his face backward until she could see it, white in the dusk, beneath her eyes.
"You have come back to explain?"
"If I can, David. It's hard for me to put in words what is so dim—what I see. It's all just love for you, David. The love burns and blazes up in me like the fire when it's fiercest on the hearth, when the day is cold outside. You've seen it so. In the little books my father used to read, there was a tale of a woman who had my name. She foretold the sorrows to come. Perhaps she saw as I see things in the dim pictures, only more clearly, and wisdom was given her to interpret them.
"Often and often I've felt that in me—that strange seeing and knowing before, and I don't like it. Only once it made me feel glad—when it led me to you and Frale that terrible moment. But it wasn't a picture that time; it was a feeling that pulled me and made me go. I would have gone that time if I had died for it."
He took her two hands and covered them with kisses, there in the darkness. "I told you you were my priestess of all that is good."
"But I don't want to be always seeing the shadows and foreboding. I want to be all happy—happy—the way you are."
"I believe you are one of the blessed ones of God who have 'the gift'; but you are right to feel as you do. Your life will be more normal and wholesome not to try to probe into the future. I'll not attempt to take my coarser humanity into your holy places, dear."
He led her into their canvas sleeping chamber, and there she was soon calmly slumbering at his side; but he lay long pondering and trying to see his way out of a certain dilemma of unrest that had been creeping into his veins and prodding him forward ever since his reëstablished health had become an assured fact. He recognized it as no more than the proper impulse of his manhood not to stagnate and slumber in a lotus dream, even as delicious a dream as this. Ah, it was inevitable. His world must become her world.
Herein lay the dilemma. This unsullied, beautiful being must enter that sordid old world, that had so pressed upon him and broken him down. This idyl might go on for perhaps a year longer—but not for always—not for always.
He slept at last, and dreamed that they were being driven along a dark, cold river, wide and swift; that they had entered it where it was only a narrow, rushing stream, sparkling and tumbling over rocks, and winding in intricate turnings on itself; that they had laughed as they followed it, plashing among the stones where she led him by the hand, until it grew wider and deeper and colder, and they were lifted from their feet and were tossed and swirled about, and she cried and clung to him, and even as he clasped her and held her, he knew her to be slipping from him. Then in terror he awoke, and, reaching out in the darkness, drew her into his embrace and slept again.
"David," said his wife next day, as he came whistling up to his cabin from the farm below, "do you mind if I give mother a little help with the weaving? Mattie can't do it. She's right nigh spoiled the counterpane we had on when she came, and since mother's hurt, she can't work the treadles, so now the hotel's open Miss Mayhew may come and find them not half done."
"Do I mind? Why should I mind, if you don't 'right nigh' spoil your back and wear yourself out?"
"Then I'll go down with you after dinner and see can I patch up Mattie's mistakes. It takes so much patience—a loom does, to understand it."
Mattie was the cousin David had imported from the low country to relieve Cassandra from the burden of the work in the home below. Although a disappointment to them, she still did her work after her own fashion, clumsily and slowly, but her Aunt 'Marthy' was never at rest, prodding the dull nature forward, trying to make her take the interest Cassandra had done.
David had wisely persuaded his wife to leave them to themselves, to work out the problem of adjustment to the new conditions as best they might, and his persuasions had been of a more peremptory nature than he realized. To Cassandra they had been as commands, but now—when the weaving on which the widow had counted so much was likely to be ruined by Mattie's unskilled hands—the old mother had declared she could not bear to see her niece around and should "pack her off whar she come from."
Therefore Cassandra had made her timid request—the first evidence of shrinking from her husband she had ever given. Why was it? he asked himself. What had he ever said or done to make her prefer a request in that way?But it was over in an instant, and her own poised manner returned as they ate and chatted together.
Little Hoyle came running up to eat with them. He had conceived a dislike to the home below since the incumbent had come to take his sister's place, and evaded thus, as often as possible, his mother's vigilance. David did not mind the intrusion, but suffered the adoring little chap to sit at his side, ever twisting his small body about to fix his great eyes on David's face, while he plied him with questions and hung on his words too intent to attend to his own eating unless admonished thereto by his sister.
"If you don't eat, son, I'll send you back to mother," she threatened.
"I won't go," he rebelled joyously. "I'll jes' set here 'longside brothah David."
"No, you won't, young man. You'll do whatever sister says. That's what I do." He put his hand on the boy's tousled head and turned him about to his plate, well filled with food still untouched, but he noticed that the child ate listlessly, more as an act of obedience than from a normal desire. He glanced up at his wife and saw that she also noticed Hoyle's languor. They finished the meal in a silence only broken by Hoyle's questions and David's replies, now serious, now teasing and bantering.
"You are so full of interrogation points you have no room for your dinner. Here—drink this milk—slowly; don't gulp it."
"I know what they be. They go this-a-way." The boy set down his glass to illustrate with his slender little hand the form of the question mark. Then he laughed out gayly. "You know hu' come I got filled up with them things? I done swallered that thar catechism Cass b'en teachin' me Sundays."
"No, I'm thinking you just are one yourself."
"'Cause I'm crooked like this-a-way?" He twisted about and looked up at David gravely.
"No, no, son. Doctor didn't mean that," said his sister.
"Finish your milk," said David. "We'll have some fun with the microscope." And once again the child essayed to eat and drink a little.
But the languor and pallor grew in spite of all Davidcould do for him, and as the weeks passed his large eyes burned more brilliantly and his thin form grew more meagre. Cassandra got in the way of keeping him up at the cabin with her, and when she went down to weave, he went also and used to lie on the bundles of cotton, poring over the books which David procured for him from time to time.
"What he gets in that way won't hurt him. It's not like having set tasks to learn, and he's not burdened with any 'ought' or 'ought not' about it. Let him vegetate until cooler weather. Then, if he doesn't improve, we'll see what can be done. Something radical, I imagine."
The fall arrived in a splendor that was truly oriental in its gorgeousness. The changing colors of the foliage surpassed in brilliancy anything David had ever seen or imagined possible. The mantle of deepest green which had clothed the mountain sides all summer, became transmuted, until all the world was glorified and glowing as if the heat of the summer sun had been stored up during the drowsy days to burst forth thus in warmest reds and golds.
"The hills look as if they had clothed themselves in Turkish rugs, ancient and fine," said David one evening, as he sat on his rock, watching them burn in the afterglow of the setting sun.
"How much there is for me to learn and know," Cassandra replied in a low voice. "I never saw a Turkish rug. You often speak of things I know nothing about."
David laughed and turned upon her happy eyes. "Why so sad for that? Did you think I loved you and married you for your worldly knowledge?" She smiled back at him and was silent. Presently he continued. "Now, while Hoyle is not here, I wish to talk to you a little about him."
"Yes, David." Her heart fluttered with a nameless fear, but she betrayed no sign of emotion.
"You've seen, of course. It's not necessary to tell you."
"No, David—only—does it mean death?" She put her hand out to him, and he took it in his and stroked it.
"Not surely. We'll make a fight for him, won't we, dear?"
"Oh, David! What can we do?" she moaned.
"There's a thing to do that I've been reserving as a lastresort. I think the time has come to try it. This curvature presses on some vital part, and the action of his heart is uncertain. He needs the tonic of the cold,—the ice and snow. Would you trust him to me, dear? I'll take him to Doctor Hoyle. You know very well everything kindness and skill can do will be done for him there."
"Yes, yes, David. You are so good to him always! Would—would you go—alone with him?" She drew closer to him, her head on his shoulder and her hand in his, but he could not see her face.
"You mean without you, dearest?"
"Yes."
"That may be as you say. Would you prefer to go with us?"
She drew a long breath, slowly, like an indrawn sigh, and something trembled to pass her heart, but suddenly the old habit of reserve sealed her lips and she remained silent.
"What do you say?" he urged.
"Tell me first—do you want me to go?"
He was silent, and they sat waiting for each other. Then he said, "I do want you to go—and yet I don't want you to go—yet. Sometime, of course, we must go where I may find wider scope for my activities." He felt her quiver of anxiety. "Not until you are quite ready yourself, dear, always remember that." Still she was silent, and he continued: "I can't say that I'm quite ready myself. I would prefer one more year here, but Hoyle must be removed without delay. We may have waited too long as it is. Will your mother consent? She must, if she cares to see him live."
"Oh, David! Go, go. Take him and go to-morrow. Leave me here and go—but—come back to me, David, soon—very soon. I—I shall need you, I— Can you leave Hoyle there and come back, David? Or must you bide there, too?" Suddenly she bowed her face in her hands. "Oh, I'm so wicked and selfish to think of leaving him there without you or me or mother—one. David, what can we do? He might die there, and you—you must come back for the winter; what would save him, might kill you. Oh, David! Take me with you, and leave me there with him, and you come back. Doctor Hoyle will take care of him—of us—once we are there."
"Now, now, now! hold your dear heart in peace. Why, I'm well. To stay another winter would only be to establish myself in a more rugged condition of body—not that I must do so. We'll talk with your mother to-morrow. It may be hard to persuade her."
But he found the mother most reasonable and practical. He even tried to abate her perfect trust in him and his ability to bring the child back to her quite well and strong.
"This isn't a trouble that is ever really cured, you know. When taken young enough, it may be helped, and I've known people who have lived long and useful lives in spite of it. That's all we may hope for."
"Waal, I 'low ye can't git him no younger'n he be now, an' he's that peart, I reckon he's worth hit—leastways to we-uns."
"Of course he's worth it."
"You are right good to keer fer him like you have. I'd do a heap fer you ef I could. All I have is jest this here farm, an' hit's fer you an' Cass. On'y ef ye'd 'low me an' leetle Hoyle to bide on here whilst we live—"
David was touched. "Do you realize I've found here the two greatest things in the world, love and health? All I want is for you to know and remember that if I can't succeed in doing all I would like for the boy, at least I tried my very best. I may not succeed, you know, but this is the only thing to do now—the only thing."
David parted from his young wife, leaving her standing in the door of their cabin, clad in her white homespun frock, smiling, yet tearful and pale. He was to walk down to the Fall Place, where Jerry Carew waited with the wagon in which he had arrived, and where his baggage had been brought the day before. When he came to the steepest part of the descent, he looked back and saw Cassandra still standing as if in a trance, gazing after him. He felt his heart lean towards her, and, turning sharply, walked swiftly to her and took her once more in his arms and looked down into those deep springs—her sweet gray eyes. Thus for a long moment he held her to his heart with never a word. Then she entered the little home, and he walked away, looking back no more.
Doctor Hoyle sat in his office staring straight before him, not as if he were looking at David Thryng, who sat in range of his vision, but as if seeing beyond him into some other time and place. David had been speaking, but now they both were silent, and the young man wondered if his old friend had really been paying attention to his words or not.
"Well, Doctor," he said at last.
"Well, David."
"You don't seem satisfied. Is it with my condition?"
"Your condition? No, no, no! It's not your condition. Yes, yes—fine, fine. I never saw such a marvellous change in my life, never!"
David smiled over the old doctor's stammer of enthusiasm. It was as if his thoughts, fertile and vehement, and the feelings of his great, warm heart welled up within him, and, trying to burst forth all at once, tumbled over themselves, unable to secure words rapidly enough in which to give themselves utterance.
"Then why so silent and dubious?"
"Why—why—y—young man, I wasn't thinking anything about you just then." And again David laughed, while his wiry old friend jumped up and walked rapidly and restlessly about the small apartment and laughed in sympathy. "It's not—not—"
"I know." David grew instantly sober again. "Of course the little chap's case is serious—very—or I would not have brought him to you."
"Oh, no, no, I'm not thinking of Adam, bless you, no." The doctor always called his little namesake Adam. "I'm thinking of her—the little girl you left behind you. Yes—yes. Of her."
"She's not so little now, Doctor; she's tall—tall enough to be beautiful."
"I remember her,—slight—slight little creature, all eyes and hair, all soul and mind. Now what are you going to do with her, eh?"
"What is she going to do with me, rather! I'll go back to her as soon as I dare leave the boy."
"But, man alive! what—what are—you can't live down there all your days. It's to be life and work for you, sir, and what are you going to do with her, I say?"
"I'll bring her here with me. She'll come."
"Of course you'll bring her here with you, and you—you'll have plenty of friends. Maybe they'll appreciate her, and maybe they won't; maybe they won't, I say; Understand? And she'll c—come. Oh, yes, she'll come! she'll do whatever you say, and presently she'll break her heart and die for you. She'll never say a word, but that's what she'll do."
"Why, Doctor!" cried David, appalled. "I love her as my own life—my very soul."
"Of—of course. That goes without saying. We all do, we men, but we—damn it all! Do you suppose I've lived all these years and not seen? Why—we think of ourselves first every time. D—don't we, though? Rather!"
"But selfish as we are, we can love—a man can, if he sets himself to it honestly,—love a woman and make her happy, even without the appreciation of others, in spite of environment,—everything. It's the destiny of women to love us, thank God. She would have been doomed surely to die if she had married the one who wanted her first—or to live a life for her worse than death."
"Oh, Lord bless you, boy, yes. It's a woman's destiny. I'm an old fool. There—there's my own little girl, she's m—married and gone—gone to live in England. They will do it—the women will. Come, we'll go see Adam."
The doctor sprang up, brushed his hand across his eyes, and caught up a battered silk hat. He turned it about and looked at it ruefully, with a quizzical smile playing about the corners of his eyes. "Remember that hat?" he asked.
"Well do I remember it. You've driven many a mile in many a rainstorm by my side under that hat! When you're done with it, leave it to me in your will. I have a fancy for it. Will you?"
"Here, take it—take it. I'm done with it. Mary scolds me every day about it. No p—peace in life because of it. Here's a new one I bought the other day—good one—good enough."
He lifted a box which had fallen from his cluttered office table, and took from it a new hat which had evidently not been unpacked before. He tried it on his head, turned it about and about, took it off and gazed at it within and without, then hastily tossed it aside and, snatching his old one from David put it on his head, and they started off.
Hoyle had been placed in a small ward where were only two other little beds, both occupied, with one nurse to attend on the three patients. One of them had broken his leg and had to lie in a cast, and the other was convalescing from fever, but both were well enough to be companionable with the lonely little Southerner. Hoyle's face beamed upon David as he bent over him.
"I kin make pi'chers whilst I'm a-lyin' here," he cried ecstatically. "That thar lady, she 'lows me to make 'em. She 'lows mine're good uns." David glanced at the young woman indicated. She was pleasant-faced and rosy, and looked practical and good.
"He's such an odd little chap," she said.
"What be that—odd? Does hit mean this 'er lump on my back?" He pulled David down and whispered the question in his ear.
"No, no. She only means that you're a dear, queer little chap."
"What be I quare fer?"
"What are all these drawings? Tell us what they mean."
"This'n, hit's the ocean, an' that thar, hit's a steamship sailin' on th' ocean, like you done tol' me about. An' this'n, hit's our house an' here's whar ol' Pete bides at; an' this'n's ol' Pete kickin' out like he hated somethin' like he does when we give Frale's colt his corn first." The other small boys from their beds laughed out merrily andstrained their necks to see. "These're theirn. I made this'n fer him an' this'n fer him."
He tossed the pictures feebly toward them, and they fluttered to the floor. David gathered them up and gave them to their respective owners. The old doctor stood beside the cot and looked down on the little artist. His lips twitched and his eyes twinkled.
"Which one is y—yours?" he asked.
"I keep this'n with the sea—an'—here, I made this'n fer you." He paused, and selected carefully among the pile of papers under his hand. "You reckon you kin tell what 'tis?"
The doctor took the paper and regarded it gravely a moment, then lifted his eyebrows and made grimaces of wonderment until the three patients in the three little beds were in gales of laughter. At last he said:—
"It's a pile of s—sausages."
"Hit hain't no sausages. Hit's jest a straight, cl'ar pi'cher of a house, an' hit's your house, too, whar brothah David lives at. See? Thar's the winder, an' the other winder hit's on t'othah side whar you can't see hit."
The doctor turned the paper over and regarded it a moment. "Show me the window. I—I see no window on the other side."
Again the three little invalids laughed uproariously at their visitor. David smilingly looked on. How often had he seen the delightful old man amuse himself thus with the children! He would contort his mobile face into all the varying expressions of wonder and dismay, of terror or stupefaction, and his entrance to the children's ward was always greeted with outcries of delight, when the little ones were well enough to allow of such freedom.
"Haven't you one to send to your sister?" asked David, stooping low to the child and speaking quietly. The boy's face lighted with a radiant smile that caused the old man to stand regarding him more intently.
"We'll sen' her this'n of the sea. You reckon hit looks like the ocean whar the ships go a-sailin' to t'othah side o' the world?" He held it in his slender fingers and eyed it critically.
"How did you come to try to make a picture of the sea when you never saw it?"
"Do' know. I feel like I done seed th' ocean when I'm settin' thar on the rock an' them white, big clouds go a-sailin' far—far, like they're goin' to anothah world an' hain't quite touchin' this'n."
"I wondered why you had your ship so high above the sea."
"I don't guess hit's a very good'n," said the child, ruefully, clinging to the scrap of paper with reluctant grasp. "You reckon she'd keer fer this'n?"
"I reckon she'd care for anything you made. Give it to me, and I'll send it to her."
"She tol' me the sea, hit war blue, an' I can't make hit right blue an' soft like she said. That thar blue pencil, hit's too slick. I can't make hit stay on the papah."
"What are these mounds here on either side of the sea?"
"Them's mountains."
"But why did you put mountains in the sea?" The boy looked with wide eyes dreamily past the two men so attentively regarding him.
"I—I reckon I jes' put 'em thar fer to look like the sea hit war on the world. I don't guess the'd be no ocean nor no world 'thout the' war mountains fer to hold everything whar hit belongs at."
"I shall bring you a box of paints to-morrow if the nurse will allow you to have them. I'll provide an oilcloth to spread around so he won't throw paint over your nice clean bed," he said to the pleasant-faced young woman.
"That's all right, Doctor," she said.
"Then you can make the blue stay on, and you can make the ocean with real water, and real blue for the sky and the sea."
The child's eyes glowed. He pulled David down and held him with his arm about his neck, and whispered in his ear, and what he said was:—
"When they're a-pullin' on me to git my hade straight an' my back right, I jes' think 'bout the far—far-away sea, with the ships a-sailin' an' how hit look, an' hit don't hurt so much. I kin b'ar hit a heap bettah. When you comin' back, brothah David?"
"Does it hurt you very much, Hoyle?"
"I reckon hit have to hurt," said the child, withfatalistic resignation. "I don't guess he'd hurt me 'thout he had to." He released David slowly, then pulled him down again. "Don't tell him I 'lowed hit hurted me. I reckon he'd ruthah hurt hisself if he could do me right that-a-way. You guess I—I'm goin' to git shet o' the misery some day?"
"That's what we're trying for, my brave little brother," and the two physicians bade the small patients good-by and walked out upon the street.
As they passed down the street, David shivered and buttoned his light overcoat closer about him.
"Cold?" said the older man.
"Your air is a bit keen here already. I hope it will be the needed tonic for that little chap."
"What were his s—secrets?" David told him.
"He's imaginative—yes—yes. I really would rather hurt myself. He may come on—he may. I've known—I've known—curious, but—Why—Hello—hello! Why—where—" and Doctor Hoyle suddenly darted forward and shook hands with another old gentleman, who was alertly stepping toward them, also thin and wiry, but with a face as impassive as the doctor's was mobile and expressive. "Mr. Stretton, why—why! David—Mr. Stretton, David Thryng—"
"Ah, Mr. Thryng. I am most happy to find you here."
"Doctor Thryng—over here on this side, you know."
"Ah, yes. I had really forgotten. But speaking of titles—I must give this young man his correctly. Lord Thryng—allow me to congratulate you, my lord."
"I fear you mistake me for my cousin, sir," said David, smiling. "I hope you have no ill news from my good uncle; but I am not the David who inherits. I think he is in South Africa—or was by the latest home letters."
Mr. Stretton did not reply directly, but continued smiling, as his manner was, and turned toward David's companion.
"Shall we go to my hotel? I have a great deal to talk over—business which concerns—ahem—ahem—your lordship, on behalf of your mother, having come expressly—" he turned again to David. "Ah, now don't be at all alarmed, I beg of you. I see I have disturbed you. She is quite well, or was a week or more ago. DoctorHoyle, you'll accompany us? At my request. Undoubtedly you are interested in your young friend."
Mechanically David walked with the two older men, filled with a strange sinking of the heart, and at the same time with a vague elation. Was he called home by his mother to help her sustain a new calamity? Had the impossible happened? Mr. Stretton's manner continued to be mysteriously deferential toward him, and something in his air reminded David of England and the atmosphere of his uncle's stately home. Had he ever seen the man before? He really did not know.
They reached the hotel shortly and were conducted to Mr. Stretton's private apartment, where wine was ordered, and promptly served. For years thereafter, David never heard the clinking of glasses and bottles borne on a tray without an instant's sickening sinking of the heart, and the foreboding that seemed to drench him with dismay as the glasses were placed on the stand at Mr. Stretton's elbow. When that gentleman, after seeing the waiter disappear, and placing certain papers before him, began speaking, David sat dazedly listening.
What was it all—what was it? The glasses seemed to quiver and shake, throwing dancing flecks of light; and the wine in them—why did it make him think of blood? Were they dead then—all three—his two cousins and his brother—dead? Shot! Killed in a bloody and useless war! He was confounded, and bowing his head in his hands sat thus—his elbows on his knees—waiting, hearing, but not comprehending.
He could think only of his mother. He saw her face, aged and grief-stricken. He knew how she loved the boy she had lost, above all, and now she must turn to himself. He sat thus while the lawyer read a lengthy document, and at the end personally addressed him. Then he lifted his head.
"What is this? My uncle? My uncle gone, too? Do you mean dead? My uncle dead, and I—I his heir?"
The lawyer replied formally, "You are now the head of a most ancient and honorable house. You will have the dignity of the old name to maintain, and are called upon to return to your fatherland and occupy thehome of your ancestors." He took up one of the papers and adjusted his monocle.
For a time David did not speak. At last he rose and, with head erect, extended his hand to the lawyer. "I thank you, sir, for your trouble,—but now, Doctor, shall we return to your house? I must take a little time to adjust my mind to these terrible events. It is like being overtaken with an avalanche at the moment when all is most smiling and perfect."
The lawyer began a few congratulatory remarks, but David stopped him, with uplifted hand.
"It is calamitous. It is too terrible," he said sadly. "And what it brings may be far more of a burden than a joy."
"But the name, my lord,—the ancient and honorable lineage!"
"That last was already mine, and for the title—I have never coveted it, far less all that it entails. I must think it over."
"But, my lord, it is yours! You can't help yourself, you know; a—the—the position is yours, and you will a—fill it with dignity, and—a—let me hope will follow the conservative policy of your honored uncle."
"And I say I must think it over. May I not have a day—a single day—in which to mourn the loss of my splendid brother? Would God he had lived to fill this place!" he said desperately.
The lawyer bowed deferentially, and Doctor Hoyle took David's arm and led him away as if he were his son. Not a word was spoken by either of them until they were again in the doctor's office. There lay the new silk hat, as he had tossed it one side. He took it up and turned it about in his hand.
"You see, David, an old hat is like an old friend, and it takes some time to get wonted to a new one." He gravely laid the old one within easy reach of his arm and restored the new one to its box. Then he sat himself near David and placed his hand kindly on his knee. "You—you have your work laid out for you, my young friend. It's the way in Old England. The stability of our society—our national life demands it."
"I know."
"You must go to your mother."
"Yes, I must go to her."
"Of course, of course, and without delay. Well, I'll take care of the little chap."
"I know you will, better than I could." David lifted his eyes to his old friend's, then turned them away. "I feel him to be a sacred trust." Again he paused. "It—would take a—long time to go to her first?"
"To—her?" For the instant the old man had forgotten Cassandra. Not so David.
"My wife. It will be desperately hard—for her."
"Yes, yes. But your uncle, you know, died of grief, and your m—mother—"
"I know—so the lawyer said. Now at last we'll read mother's letter. He wondered, I suppose, that I didn't look at it when he gave it to me, but I felt conscience-stricken. I've been so filled with my life down there—the peace, the blessed peace and happiness—that I have neglected her—my own mother. I couldn't open and read it with that man's eyes on me. No, no. Stay here, I beg of you, stay. You are different. I want you."
He opened his mother's letter and slowly read it, then passed it to his friend and, rising, walked to the window and stood gazing down into the square. Autumn leaves were being tossed and swirled in dancing flights, like flocks of brown and yellow birds along the street. The sky was overcast, with thin hurrying clouds, and the feeling of autumn was in the air, but David's eyes were blurred, and he saw nothing before him. The doctor's voice broke the silence with sudden impulse.
"In this she speaks as if she knew nothing about your marriage."
"I told you I had neglected her," cried David, contritely.
"But, m—man alive! why—why in the name of all the gods—"
"All England is filled with fools," cried the younger man, desperately. "I could never in the world make them understand me or my motives. I gave it up long ago. I've not told my mother, to save her from a needless sorrow that would be inflicted on her by her friends. They would all flock to her and pester her with theiroutcry of 'How very extraordinary!' I can hear them and see them now. I tell you, if a man steps out of the beaten track over there—if he attempts to order his own life, marry to please himself, or cut his coat after any pattern other than the ordinary conventional lines,—even the boys on the street will fling stones at him. Her patronizing friends would, at the very least, politely raise their eyebrows. She is proud and sensitive, and any fling at her sons is a blow to her."
"But what—"
"I say I couldn't tell her. I tell you I have been drinking from the cup of happiness. I have drained it to the last drop. My wife is mine. She does not belong to those people over there, to be talked over, and dined over, and all her beauty and fineness overlooked through their monocles—brutes! My mountain flower in her homespun dress—only poets could understand and appreciate her."
"B—but what were you going to do about it?"
"Do about it? I meant to keep her to myself until the right time came. Perhaps in another year bring her here and begin life in a modest way, and let my mother visit us and see for herself. I was planning it out, slowly—but this— You see, Doctor, their ideas are all warped over there. They accept all that custom decrees and have but the one point of view. The true values of life are lost sight of. They have no hilltops like Cassandra's. Only the poets have."
A quizzical smile played about the old man's mouth. He came and laid his arm across David's shoulders, and the act softened the slight sting of his words. "And—you call yourself a poet?"
"Not that," said the young man, humbly, "but I have been learning. I would have scorned to be called a poet until I learned of this girl and her father. I thought I had ideals, and felt my superiority in consequence, until I came down to the beginnings of things with them."
"Her—her father? Why—he's dead—he—"
"And yet through her I have learned of him. I believe he was a man who walked with God, and at Cassandra's side I have trod in his secret places."
"That's right. I'm satisfied now, about her. You're all right, but—but—your mother."
David turned and walked to the table and sat with his head bowed on his arms. Had he been alone, he would have wept. As it was, he spoke brokenly of his old home, and the responsibilities now so ruthlessly thrust upon him. Of his mother's grief and his own, and of this inheritance that he had never dreamed would be his, and therefore had never desired, now given him by so cruel a blow. He would not shrink from whatever duty or obligation might rest upon him, but how could he adjust his changed circumstances to the conditions he had made for himself by his sudden marriage. At last it was decided that he should sail for England without delay, taking the passage already provisionally engaged for him by Mr. Stretton.
"I can write to Cassandra. She will understand more easily than my mother. She sees into the heart of things. Her thoughts go to the truth like arrows of light. She will see that I must go, but she must never know—I must save her from it if I have to do so at the expense of my own soul—that the reason I cannot take her with me now is that our great friends over there are too small to understand her nature and might despise her. I must go to my mother first and feel my way—see what can be done. Neither of them must be made to suffer."
"That's right, perfectly—but don't wait too long. Just have it out with your mother—all of them; the sooner the simpler, the sooner the simpler."
How wise was the advice of the old doctor to make short work of the confession to his mother, and to face the matter of his marriage bravely with his august friends and connections, David little knew. If his marriage had been rash in its haste, nothing in the future should be done rashly. Possibly he might be obliged to return to America before he made a full revelation that a wife awaited him in that far and but dimly appreciated land. In his mind the matter resolved itself into a question of time and careful adjustment.
Slowly as the boat ploughed through the never resting waters,—slowly as the western land with its dreams and realities drifted farther into the vapors that blended the line of the land and the sea,—so slowly the future unveiled itself and drew him on, into its new dreams, revealing, with the inevitable progression of the hours, a life heretofore shrouded and only vaguely imagined, as a glowing reality filled with opportunity and power.
He felt his whole nature expand and become imbued with intoxicating ambitions, as if hereafter he would be swept onward to ride through life triumphant, even as the boat was riding the sea, surmounting its mysterious depths and taking its unerring way in spite of buffeting of winds and beating of waves.
Still young, with renewed vitality, his hopes turned to the future, recognizing the tremendous scope for his energies which his own particular prospects presented. Often he stood alone in the prow, among the coils of rope, and watched the distance unroll before him, while the salt breeze played with his clustering hair and filled his lungs. He loved the long sweep of the prow, as it divided the water and cast it foaming on either side, in opaline and turquoise tints, shifting and falling into the indigo depths of the vastness around.
In thought he spanned the wide spaces and leaped still toward the future; before him the gray-haired mother who trembled to hold him once more in her arms, behind him the young wife waiting his return, enclosing him serenely and adoringly in her heart.
Each day while on shipboard, David wrote to Cassandra, voluminously. He found it a pleasant way of passing the hours. He described his surroundings and unfolded such of his anticipations as he felt she could best understand and with which she could sympathize, trying to explain to her what the years to come might hold for them both, and telling her always to wait with patience for his return. This could not be known definitely until he had looked into the state of his uncle's affairs—which would hereafter be his own.
Sometimes his letter contained only a review of some of the happiest hours they had spent together, as if he were placing his thoughts of those blessed days on paper, that they might be for their mutual communing. Sometimes he discoursed of the calamity he had suffered, the uselessness of his brother's death, and the cruelty and wastefulness of war. At such times he was minded to write her of the opportunity now given him to serve his country, and the power he might some day attain to promote peace and avert rash legislation.
Never once did he allow an inadvertent word to slip from his pen, whereby she could suspect that she, as his wife, might be a cause of embarrassment to him, or a clog in the wheel of the chariot which from now on was to bear him triumphantly among his social friends or political enemies. Never would he disturb the sweet serenity that encompassed her. Yet well he knew what an incongruity she would appear should he present her now—as she had stood by her loom, or in the ploughed field at his side—to the company he would find in his mother's home.
Simple and direct as she was, she would walk over their conventions and proprieties, and never know it. How strange many of those customs of theirs would appear to her, and how unnecessary! He feared for her most in her utter ignorance of everything pertaining to the daily existence of the over-civilized circle to which the changed conditions of his life would bring her.
Much, he knew, would pass unseen by her, but soon she would begin to understand, and to wince under their exclamations of "How extraordinary!" The masklike expression would steal over her face, her pride would encase her spirit in the deep reserve he himself had found so hard to penetrate, and he could see her withdrawing more and more from all, until at last— Ah! it must not be. He must manage very carefully, lest Doctor Hoyle's prophecy indeed be fulfilled.
At last the lifting of the veil to the eastward revealed the bold promontory of Land's End, and soon, beyond, the fair green slopes of his own beautiful Old England. For all of the captious criticism he had fallen in the way of bestowing upon her, how he loved her! He felt as if he must throw up his arms and shout for joy. Suddenly she had become his, with a sense of possession new to him, and sweet to feel. The orderliness and stereotyped lines of her social system against which he had rebelled, and the iron bars of her customs which his soul had abhorred in the past,—against which his spirit had bruised and beaten itself,—now lured him on as a security for things stable and fine. In subtile ways as yet unrealized, he was being drawn back into the cage from which he had fled for freedom and life.
How quickly he had become accustomed to the air of deference in Mr. Stretton's continual use of his newly acquired title—"my lord." Why not? It was his right. The same laws which had held him subservient before, now gave him this, and he who a few months earlier had been proudly ploughing his first furrows in his little leased farm on a mountain meadow, now walked with lifted head, "to the manor born," along the platform, and entered the first-class compartment with Mr. Stretton, where a few rich Americans had already installed themselves.
David noticed, with inward amusement, their surreptitious glances, when the lawyer addressed him; how they plumed themselves, yet tried to appear nonchalant and indifferent to the fact that they were riding in the same compartment with a lord. In time he would cease to notice even such incongruities as this tacit homage from a professedly title-scorning people.
David's mother had moved into the town house, whither his uncle had sent for her, when, stricken with grief, he had lain down for his last brief illness. The old servants had all been retained, and David was ushered to his mother's own sitting-room by the same household dignitary who was wont to preside there when, as a lad, he had been allowed rare visits to his cousins in the city.
How well he remembered his fine, punctilious old uncle, and the feeling of awe tempered by anticipation with which he used to enter those halls. He was overwhelmed with a sense of loss and disaster as he glanced up the great stairway where his cousins were wont to come bounding down to him, handsome, hearty, romping lads.
It had been a man's household, for his aunt had been dead many years—a man's household characterized by a man's sense of heavy order without the many touches of feminine occupation and arrangement which tend to soften a man's half military reign. As he was being led through the halls, he noticed a subtile change which warmed his quick senses. Was it the presence of his mother and Laura? His entrance interrupted an animated conversation which was being held between the two as the manservant announced his name, and, in another instant, his mother was in his arms.
"Dear little mother! Dear little mother!" But she was not small. She was tall and dignified, and David had to stoop but little to bring his eyes level with hers.
"David, I'm here, too." A hand was laid on his arm, and he released his mother to turn and look into two warm brown eyes.
"And so the little sister is grown up," he said, embracing her, then holding her off at arm's-length. "Five years! When I look at you, mother, they don't seem so long—but Laura here!"
"You didn't expect me to stay a little girl all my life, did you, David?"
"No, no." He took her by the shoulder and shook her a little and pinched her cheeks. "What roses! Why, sis, I say, you know, I'm proud of you. What have you been up to, anyway?" He flung himself on the sofa and pulled her down beside him. "Give an account of yourself."
"I've gone in for athletics."
"Right."
"And— Oh! lots of things. You give an account of yourself."
David glanced at his mother. She was seated opposite them, regarding him with brimming eyes. No, he could not give an account of himself yet. He would wait until he and his mother were alone. He lifted Laura's heavy hair, which, confined only by a great bow of black ribbon, hung streaming down her back, in a dark mass that gave her a tousled, unkempt look, and which, taken together with her dead black dress, and her dark tanned skin, roughened by exposure to wind and sun, greatly marred her beauty, in spite of her roses and the warmth of her large dark eyes.
As David surveyed his sister, he thought of Cassandra, and was minded then and there to describe her—to attempt to unveil the events of the past year, and make them see and know, as far as possible, what his life had been. He held this thought a moment, poised ready for utterance—a moment of hesitation as to how to begin, and then forever lost, as his mother began speaking.
"Laura hasn't come out yet. As events have turned, it is just as well, for her chances, naturally, will be much better now than they would have been if we had had her coming out last year."
"I don't see how, mamma, with all this heavy black. I can't come out until I leave it off, and it will be so long to wait." Laura pouted a little, discontentedly, then flushed a disfiguring flush of shame under her dark skin, as she caught the look in her brother's eyes. "Not but what I shall keep on mourning for Bob, as long as I live—he was such a dear," she added, her eyes filling with quick, impulsive tears. "But how you make out my chances will be better now, mamma, I can't see, really,—I look such a fright."
"Chances for what?" asked David, dryly.
"For matrimony—naturally," his sister flung out defiantly, half smiling through her tears. "Don't you know that's all a girl of my age lives for—matrimony and a kennel? I mean to have one, now we will have our own preserves. It will be ripping, you know."
"Certainly, our own preserves," said David, still dryly,thinking how Cassandra would wonder what preserves were, and what she would say if told that in preserves, wild harmless animals were kept from being killed by the common people for food, in order that those of his own class might chase them down and kill them for their amusement.
"Oh, David, I remember how you used to be always putting on a look like that, and thinking a lot of nasty things under your breath. I hoped you would come home vastly improved. Was it what I said about matrimony? Mamma knows it's true."
"Hardly as you put it, my child; there is much besides for a girl to think about."
"You said 'chances' yourself, mamma."
"Certainly, but that is for me to consider. You must remember that it was you who refused to have your coming out last year."
"I didn't want my good times cut short then, mamma, and have to take up proprieties—or at least I would have had to be dreadfully proper for a while, anyway—and now—why I have to be naturally; and here I am unable to come out for another year yet and my hair streaming down my back all the time. I'm sure I can't see how my chances are in the least improved by it all; and by that time I shall be so old."
"Oh, you will be quite young enough," said David.
"You occupy a far different position now, child. To make your début as Lady Laura will give you quite another place in the world. Your headstrong postponement, fortunately, will do no harm. It will make your introduction to the circle where you are eventually to move, much simpler."
Laura lifted her eyebrows and glanced from her mother to her brother. "Very well, mamma, but one thing you might as well know now. I shan't drop some of my friends—if being Lady Laura lifts me above them as high as the moon. I like them, and I don't care."
She whistled, and a beautiful, silken-haired setter crept from under the sofa whereon she had been sitting, and wriggled about after the manner of guilty dogs.
"Laura, dear!"
"Yes, mamma, I've been hiding him with my skirts bysitting there. He was bad and followed me in. We've been out riding together." She stroked his silken coat with her riding crop. "Mamma won't allow him in here, and he jolly well knows it. Bad Zip, bad, sir! Look at him. Isn't he clever? I must go and dress for dinner. Mamma wants you to herself, I know, and Mr. Stretton will be here soon. You can't think, David, how glad I am we have you back! You couldn't think it from my way—but I am—rather! It's been awful here—simply awful, since the boys all left."
Again her eyes filled with quick tears, and she dashed out with the dog bounding about her and leaping up to thrust his great tongue in her face. "You are too big for the house, Zip. Down, sir!" In an instant she was back, putting her tousled head in at the door.
"David, when mamma is finished with you, come out and see my dogs. I have five already, and Nancy is going to litter soon. Calkins is to take them into the country to-morrow, for they are just cooped up here." She withdrew, and David heard her heavy-soled shoes clatter down the long halls. He and his mother smiled as they listened, looking into each other's eyes.
"She is a dear child, but life means only a good time to her as yet."
"Well, let it. She has splendid stuff in her and is bound to make a splendid woman."
"She's right, David. It has been awful since your brother left." David sat beside her and placed his hand on hers. Again it was in his mind to tell her of Cassandra, and again he was stopped by the tenor of her next remark. "You see how it is, my son; Laura can't understand, but you will."
"I'm not sure that I do. Open your heart to me, mother; tell me what you mean."
"My dear son. I don't like to begin with worries. It is so sweet to have you back in the home. May you always stay with us."
"I don't mind the worries, mother," he said tenderly; "I am here to help you. What is it?
"It is only that, although we have inherited the title and estates, we are not there. We will be received, of course, but at first only by those who have axes to grind.There are so many such, and it is hard to protect one's self from them. For instance, there is Lady Willisbeck. Her own set have cut her completely for—certain reasons—there is no need to retail unpleasant gossip,—but she was one of the first to call. Her daughter, Lady Isabel, gave Laura that dog,—but all the more because Laura and Lady Isabel were in school together, and were on the same hockey team, they will have that excuse for clinging to us like burs.
"Lady Willisbeck would like very much now, for her daughter's sake, to win back her place in society, although she did not seem to value it for herself. Long before her mother's life became common talk,—because she was infatuated with your cousin Lyon, Lady Isabel chose Laura for her chum, and the two have worked up a very romantic situation out of the affair. You see I have cause for anxiety, David."
He still held her hand, looking kindly in her face. "Is Lady Isabel the right sort?" he asked.
"What do you mean by 'the right sort,' David? She isn't like her mother, naturally, or I would have been more decided; but she is not the right sort for us. Lady Willisbeck is ostracized, and it is a grave matter. Her daughter will be ostracized with her, unless she can find a chaperon of quality to champion her—to—to—well, you understand that Laura can't afford to make her début handicapped with such a friendship. Not now."
"I fail to see until I know more of her friend."
"But, David, we can't be visionary now. We must be practical and face the difficulties of our situation. We are honorably entitled to all that the inheritance implies, but it is another thing to avail ourselves of it. Your uncle led a most secluded life. He had no visitors, and was known only among men, and politically as a close conservative. His seat in the House meant only that. So now we enter a circle in which we never moved before, and we are not of it. For the present, our deep mourning is prohibitory, but it is also Laura's protection, although she does not know it." His mother paused. She was not regarding him. She seemed to be looking into the future, and a little line, which had formed during the years of David's absence, deepened in her forehead.
"Be a little more explicit, mother. Protection from what?"
"From undesirable people, dear. We are very conspicuous; to be frank, we are new. My own family connections are all good, but they will not be the slightest help to Laura in maintaining her position. We have always lived in the country, and know no one."
"You have refinement and good taste, mother."
"I know it; that and this inheritance and the title."
"Isn't that 'protection' enough? I really fail to see— Whatever would please you would be right. You may have what friendships you—"
"Not at all, David. Everything is iron-bound. They are simply watching lest we bring a lot of common people in our train. Things grow worse and worse in that way. There are so many rich tradespeople who are struggling to get in, and clinging desperately to the skirts of the poorer nobility. Of course, it all goes to show what a tremendous thing good birth is, and the iron laws of custom are, after all, a proper safeguard and should be respected. Nevertheless we, who are so new, must not allow ourselves to become stepping-stones. It is perfectly right.
"That is why I said this period of mourning is Laura's protection. She will have time to know what friendships are best, and an opportunity to avoid undesirable ones. You have been away so long, David, where the class lines are not so rigidly drawn, that you forget—or never knew. It is my duty, without any foolish sentiment, to guard Laura and see to it that her coming out is what it should be. For one thing, she is so very plain. If she were a beauty, it would help, but her plainness must be compensated for in other ways. She will have a large settlement, Mr. Stretton thinks, if your uncle's interests are not too much jeopardized in South Africa by this terrible war. That is something you will have to look into before you take your seat in the House."
"Oh, mother, mother! I can't—"
"My dear boy, your brother died for his country, and can you not give a little of your life for it? I can rely on you to be practically inclined, now that you are placed at the head of such a family? I'm glad now you nevercared for Muriel Hunt. She could never have filled the position as her ladyship, your uncle's wife, did. She was Lady Thomasia Harcourt Glendyne of Wales. Beside her, Muriel would appear silly. It is most fortunate you have no such entanglement now."
"Mother, mother! I am astounded! I never dreamed my dear, beautiful mother could descend to such worldliness. You are changed, mother. There is something fundamentally wrong in all this."
She looked up at him, aghast at his vehemence.
"My son, my son! Let us have only love between us—only love. I am not changed. I was content as I was, nor ever tried to enter a sphere above me. Now that this comes to me—forced on me by right of English law—I take it thankfully, with all it brings. I will fill the place as it should be filled, and Laura shall do the same, and you also, my son. As for Muriel Hunt, I will make concessions if—if your happiness demands it."
David groaned inwardly. "No, mother, no. It goes deeper than Muriel; it goes deeper." They had both risen. She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked levelly in his eyes, and her own lightened, through tears held bravely back.
"It may well go deeper than Muriel, and still not go very deep."
"And yet the time was when Muriel Hunt was thought quite deep enough," he said sadly, still looking in his mother's eyes—but she only continued:—
"Never doubt for a moment, dear, that Laura's welfare and yours are dearer to me than life. You are very weary; I see it in your eyes. Have you been to your apartment? Clark will show you." She kissed his brow and departed.